Authors: Mariah Stewart
“Why not?”
“If someone—this guy or someone else—was determined to get to Belle, he'd have found a way.”
“But why would someone be after Belle?” Ali began to cry.
Emme sighed. “That's what we're trying to figure out.”
S
o now we're on to Henry and Lori, right?” Nick put his notes aside once they'd hung up with Ali. “I see they have separate numbers. Which one do you want to call first?”
“Let's start with Henry.” Emme dialed the number, then handed Nick the phone. “He might respond better to you, being a guy.”
When no one answered, he left a message that he thought was vague enough to spark some interest, but not so specific as to scare Henry away. The call to Lori resulted in Emme leaving a message as well.
“I hope they call back,” she said as she hung up.
“You think there's a chance they won't? They were with Belinda that last day. I'd think they'd be interested.”
“You never know with kids.” Emme added, “Especially this group. I think they're a bit more suspicious than others might be because of their situation. Like Ali said, some of the families aren't happy about the kids connecting, so maybe it's tough to know who to trust when you don't know who you're dealing with.”
“Ali was okay with you.”
“I guess I hit the right note with her. You never know how it's going to go when you interview witnesses.” She thought for a moment. “Maybe we should do another email to the group. And I'm thinking that this time, the email should be from me, since I am an investigator—so the others understand that Belle really is missing.”
“Good idea.”
Emme pulled up the website and located the Donor 1735 message board.
“What are you going to say?” Nick asked.
“I think I'm just going to shoot from the hip. Lay it all out there.”
Deep in thought, she began to type. A few minutes later, she turned to Nick and said, “How does this sound?” and began to read:
My name is Emme Caldwell. I'm a private investigator with the Mercy Street Foundation, which is an organization that specializes in finding missing persons. Our services were requested by Nick Perone, the uncle of your donor sibling, Belinda Hudson—you know her as Belle—who was last seen on January twenty-fourth, 2009. It's been determined that she spent most of that day with several members of this board. Over the next several days, I will be contacting each of you to talk about Belle. I hope I can count on all of you for total cooperation and honesty. If you'd like to contact me, please call me at the number below. If you'd prefer to contact Belle's uncle directly, you can reach him at …”
She finished and looked up at Nick. “Does that sound okay?”
“It sounds great. Thanks for including me. At least now they'll know my earlier attempts to contact them wasn't a joke. Or the attempt of some perverted guy trying to—”
“Stop it. I realize that upset you—justifiably so—but I think we need to just chalk that up to some wiseass kid being, well, being a wiseass.”
“Agreed.”
Emme hit post and leaned back.
“I guess that will take a while to generate any activity. Let's move on to the next item on the agenda.” She picked up her list. “Aaron. First thing this morning, I reread the article about him in a magazine. I printed it out—it's here somewhere…” She thumbed through a folder that had been sitting to her left. “Here it is. Take a look at this. The kid's a genius. How he figured this out step-by-step and made it all work out is just beyond me.”
Nick took the file and began to read to himself.
“I'm running downstairs for coffee.” Emme stood and stretched. “Can I bring you a refill?”
“That would be great, thanks.” Engrossed in his reading, Nick handed her his mug without looking up. “You're right, this kid is really sharp.”
She returned some minutes later, a mug in each hand.
“Trula is feeling philosophical today,” she said as she placed both mugs on the table.
“What do you mean?” Nick asked.
Emme pointed to his mug.
“‘Define the moment or
the moment will define you,’”
she read. “Walt Whitman.”
She turned hers around. “
‘Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.’
John Lennon. Trula has a penchant for coffee mugs that have messages printed on them. She has dozens of them.”
“They all have famous quotes on them?”
“Some do. Those run from Nietzsche to quotes like,
‘Talk is cheap because the supply exceeds the demand.’
Others are just plain silly. Like,
‘I see dumb people.’
Or,
‘You say bitch like it's a bad thing.’
That sort of thing.” Emme smiled. “You just never know what you're going to get.”
He took a sip and sighed. “Who cares what the coffee's in when it's this good?”
“That's pretty much my feeling, too.” She sat down. “Did you finish the article?”
“I did. You're right. This kid is beyond clever. Swabs his own DNA, sends it off to have it tested at one of those online genealogy DNA-testing services, has it matched up to anyone in the same paternal line whose DNA is on file. Apparently, there are a hell of a lot of people who have supplied their DNA to these genealogy websites. There's a place called
ShakeYour-FamilyTree.com
that has been running a project to collect DNA samples for the past three years, and now has a huge database available, and they're not the only place on the Internet you can go to find DNA registries. For less than three hundred dollars, you can find out if anyone matching your DNA is on record there. Anyway, this kid gets a couple of names back—their Y chromosomes were close enough to suggest they had the same very close male relative.”
“Well, father, grandfather, great-grandfather. A brother or a cousin wouldn't have done it.”
“Right. So he gets four names back, all with the same last name. So he takes that name, and the information his mother got from the clinic where she purchased the sperm, and he puts two and two and two together and gets his donor.”
“Just by knowing his donor's place and date of birth and what degree he earned in college, he found the guy. Talk about looking for a needle in a haystack. He goes to one of those online search sites, buys the names of every man who was born on that day in that place, and bingo—there's one with the name he's looking for.”
“It sounds as if his donor wasn't too upset about being found. More like he was as impressed as we are by this kid's smarts. Enough that he and Aaron have actually been able to develop a real relationship.” Nick handed the article back to Emme. “Nice to see there was a happy ending there.”
“It makes me wonder how far Belle really got with this. I'd love to know if she was successful in getting a name,” Emme said. “And if she did, did she tell any of the other kids?”
“You think they'd admit it to you, if she did?”
“I like to think someone would.”
“Maybe they're afraid you'll hassle the guy if you know who he is. Or maybe they want to contact this guy themselves and are afraid you'll scare him off. Or there could be reasons only a kid would think up.”
“So if no one admits to knowing, it could be that she didn't tell anyone. Or it could be that she didn't
find him.” Emme took another sip of coffee, and found it had cooled. She drank it absently. “Supposing she did find him, but he was one of the donors who really didn't want to be found.”
“I've thought about that.” Nick leaned an elbow on the table and rubbed his chin. “Of course, that would mean that this kid at the museum was just a coincidence, right? Just some kid who thought she was cute and wanted to get a little closer. That sort of thing happens all the time.”
“I don't know how he fits in,” she admitted, “or, as you suggest, if he fits in to the rest of this at all. Generally speaking, I don't like coincidences—most cops don't—but that doesn't mean they don't occur.”
They heard a clicking sound coming from her computer.
She turned the screen slightly to eliminate the glare. “A message from Will and Wayne.”
She read it aloud.
“Belle is really missing? Are you sure? This isn't a joke?”
Her fingers flew across the keyboard.
No joke, guys. She's really missing. When did you last hear from her?
A minute later, the reply.
We think probably around Christmas?
We never got to go to the get-togethers because they were too far away. We only met her one time, she came to see us last fall.
She's really pretty. All our sisters are pretty—Ali sent us some pictures from a get-together they had. We wish we had something to tell you but we don't.
Emme turned to Nick. “That's pretty much what I expected from those two. Ali said they weren't real active on the message board and they didn't even have cell phones.”
Another click. Another message, this one a private email.
Miss Caldwell—Lori and I are shocked to learn that Belle has been missing all this time! We have both been away at school and haven't been on the board too much recently because of exams. We both are willing to meet with you whenever, wherever you want. Are you near CT? If you're close by, maybe we can meet partway? Henry Carroll-Wilson
“His name is Henry Carroll-Wilson?” Nick frowned. “For real? Wasn't Henry Wilson the name of Dennis the Menace's cranky old neighbor?”
Emme laughed. “Could be.”
She typed a reply email and hit send. “Just to let him know where we are and that we can meet him halfway or drive up there, whatever it takes. Every one of these kids we talk to could conceivably bring us one step closer to finding out what happened that day.”
Henry's reply was immediate.
Lori and I can drive to Philadelphia this weekend and meet you there. Is tomorrow okay with you?
When Emme hesitated, Nick asked, “Something wrong?”
“I'm kind of tied up this weekend.”
“Heavy date?”
“Yeah. With a Realtor and a four-year-old. We're still looking for a house to rent.” She thought for a moment. “Even if I schedule the Realtor for one day instead of both, I still have Chloe. I don't really have anyone to watch her, except Trula, and I don't want her to think I'm taking advantage of her. It's enough she has her company after school until I finish up in my office.”
“Why don't you bring her along?”
“I don't want her hearing the kind of stuff we'll be talking about.”
“We can all meet at the zoo, then I can take Chloe to see some of the animals while you talk to Lori and Henry.”
“I can't impose on you like that. She's a great kid, don't get me wrong, but she'll talk your ears off. You'll be deaf for a week.”
“She's that loud?”
“Not loud, just constant.”
“It's okay. I won't mind. My life's been kind of quiet for a while now.” He smiled weakly. “It's been a really long time since I've been to a zoo.”
“Nick, are you certain?”
“Absolutely. You do the investigating, I'll do the zoo with Chloe.”
She nodded, more pleased than she was willing to show, and she typed her reply to Henry. He called her cell phone in response, and together they viewed a map of the zoo online to locate the main gate.
“He sounds like a really nice guy,” Emme told Nick after she hung up from Henry's call. “He and his sister are both really upset that they didn't realize something was amiss sooner. We'll meet them tomorrow at one, right inside the zoo gate.”
“Great. Tell Chloe to wear her walking shoes. I hear it's a really big zoo.” He moved closer to the table, his fingers on her keyboard. “May I?”
“Sure. What are you? …”
He pointed to the website for the Philadelphia Zoo that was still on her screen.
“Look here, America's first zoo. Check out all the habitats.” Nick pointed to the screen. “African plains. Australian animals. Bear country. Big cats. Rare animals. Which of those do you think Chloe would like?”
“All of them. She loves animals and is ridiculously curious.” Emme grabbed the mouse and clicked on Prairie dogs.
“She'll love these. But you're going to have to watch her like a hawk, Nick. She'll be trying to get right in there with them.”
“We'll set the rules with her before we get there, and we'll set an itinerary so that she'll be able to see you. I'm assuming you can walk and talk to Henry and Lori at the same time.”
“We might end up lagging behind at times, but having an itinerary is a really good idea. Then if it's crowded and we get separated, we'll know where the other is headed for next.” She clicked again on the screen and brought up a list of exhibits. “Let's do that now while we're thinking about it.”
An hour later, they had their Saturday afternoon mapped out, and Emme had her Realtor switch all of their appointments to Sunday. When they'd finished, Emme sent the command to the wireless printer in the room to print out two copies. She retrieved them just as the computer signaled incoming mail.
“Let's see who this is,” she said. “Oh, it's Hayley.”
I called Ava. She's very upset about Belle. I went on the message board and asked everyone to call or email you as soon as possible and tell you when they last heard from Belle. I told everyone that you're trying to help. And I emailed all the others who don't go on the board very often or who stopped going on at all. Everyone needs to know about this. Is there anything else you want me to do?
“Sweet girl,” Emme murmured as she began to type. “Since we can't read the messages that are posted on the board, except for the ones we write, I'm hoping Hayley will tell me if there's any rumbles going on about this on the message board.”
Hayley, you've been a huge help—we can't thank you enough. Please keep in touch, and let us know what's posted on the message board by the others.
“So now we go on to Aaron.” She began to compose the email. “Do we want this one from me, or from you?”
“Maybe from me. Getting an email from a private investigator might make him nervous.”
“Good point.” She nodded. “We'll send this one from Uncle Nick…”
They worked on the email for almost twenty minutes before they were satisfied with its contents.